


Long Time Gone

by TSDefiance



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Break Up, Further Tags as events warrant, Hitchhiking, Past Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Pearl's kinda fxcked up let's just admit it, Pre-Series, downer ending, imposter syndrome, post-episode we need to talk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23297590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TSDefiance/pseuds/TSDefiance
Summary: pearl finally dumps rose's pink fluffy butt and strikes out into the unknowngood luck with that lol(As of 11/08/2020 this fic is COMPLETE. I have no idea how to mark that or change the chapters from 7/? to 7/7 but I am DONE. yeehaw.)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first thing I've actually published anywhere and I'm terrified. Technically all written but chapters 3-7 are still waiting on a third draft. Constructive criticism is more than welcome!

The first time Pearl delivered her ultimatum, Rose laughed- one of those big belly laughs that came rippling up through her whole form with fondness and incredulity. She pulled Pearl to her before she’d finished speaking, smothering her in a hug and peppering her with kisses. She apologized for neglecting her, told her to ask when she needed attention, and reassured that there was no need to be silly about these things- Rose loved her! Of course she did! If Pearl wanted to spend time with Rose, they could do that now!

So they did. They all but ran to the nearest warp pad, holding hands and tripping because they were looking too deep into each other’s eyes to focus on the ground. Rose set their destination, and when the afterimages of the trip cleared Pearl looked out into a nighttime forest grove filled with white flowers and little flying things. The heady scent of lunar blossoms crowded her head with memories that left no room for bitter thoughts, and when Rose pulled her, still blinking, off the warp pad and into a wild swing, she could hardly remember why she was mad.

They danced for hours. Rose led first, then Pearl, until they were both giggling and tired. A playful argument about whether to end with a merengue or a waltz ended with Rose stretched out on the ground, Pearl curled into her side, and them both engaged in earnest conversation. The subjects meandered from the present to the past, from the good times to the bad old days, to humans and Homeworld and anything else that crossed their minds. Eventually, the words petered out. The only sounds left were the buzzing of insects and sweet soughing of wind ruffling the verdure. Rose plucked blades of soft grass and played with them, tying them together and pulling them apart. Pearl watched her and absentmindedly dug her fingers into Rose’s hair. The curls were voluminous, their sheer bulk apparent when splayed out over the grass in every direction, and they were strong. Pearl had attempted to pluck one once, after learning about the human custom of keeping the hairs of one’s beloved in lockets. She failed, of course, and was forced to ask Rose’s permission to use a pair of shears, which was granted only after a spate of teasing resulting in a vicious blush. The locket was gone now, lost somewhere in her room, or perhaps stolen by Amethyst, but Pearl treasured the memory of it and the utter intimacy inherent in Rose entrusting her with part of her form. On impulse, she pulled a curl taut, then let go and watched it _sproing_ back into place. Despite its resilience, it was soft as a cloud and a beautiful, vibrant pink. _Like Rose_ , Pearl thought.

Naps were a rare indulgence for Pearl, but in this place and this company, she felt safe enough to risk a few hours of sleep. Nothing she might project would surprise Rose. There were no secrets between the two of them, and she said as much, whispering it into the grass. Rose just looked at her with sad eyes and reached out to pull her close. Dawn was just breaking. Pearl wormed closer and buried her head in the side of Rose’s breast to block out the light. She drifted away pressed into her side, one skinny arm stretched across an expansive stomach and two large hands cupping her head. She didn’t dream about the war. Pearl’s sleep was filled with fusion, freedom, dancing, and love.

When Pearl woke, the sun had already crawled halfway up the sky. The grass was cold and damp with dew. The lunar blossoms were closed, and the glowing insects that fed on them were replaced by clouds of droning gnats. Rose was gone.

The second time Pearl delivered her ultimatum, Rose wasn’t even paying attention. Later, she decided it was her fault for trying to start a conversation while Rose was stepping onto the warp pad, but Pearl hadn’t had the chance to talk to her for days. Rose had been busy, or elsewhere, or caught up in something that Pearl couldn’t stand to interrupt, but now she was back, running into the temple cave with her skirts hiked up around her knees, and Pearl just had to talk to her. Besides, Rose always listened to Pearl. Even when she didn’t take her advice, she listened, and acknowledged it like it was important to her. And it wasn’t only her; Rose listened to everybody. She sat, rapt with attention, whenever Garnet brought home a new pet and explained how she’d found it and what about it reminded her of Ruby or Sapphire. She played along when Amethyst discovered something new and exciting about human culture and wanted to make Rose guess. And she always, always, had time for Pearl.

“Rose, I need- ”

“I have to go, I’m so sorry! Tell me later- ”

This time, Pearl could only get out the first few words before Rose warped away, her shouted apology vanishing in the warp stream with the rest of her. Pearl gave the rest of her speech to the inert pad and empty temple, just in case Rose came back. She waited a few minutes more but the pad remained stubborn silent, taunting her with its refusal to spark. Feeling angry and foolish, Pearl went down to the beach and threw rocks at the ocean. Each windup was perfect, but the projectiles were inconsistent, and her throws went wild to the north and south, panicking the wheeling seabirds and, no doubt, disturbing the fish. One of them clipped the mast of a passing boat at the edge of her range, about a quarter mile from shore. One of the humans on deck ducked and looked around wildly for the source of the projectile, before deciding the other crewmember must be to blame. They stalked over to their mate, gesticulating emphatically. The accused reacted by gesticulating right back and shoving the first human in the chest.

Pearl looked away. What the humans did was no concern of hers.

Instead, she pulled her weapon out to run some drills. The beach was a good place to practice. It was private; humans stayed away even after - her mouth twitched - _that one_ knocked it down. Her feet slipped on the top layer of sand; she was too light to sink into it and find footing on the packed sand underneath. She had to work to keep her spear steady. That was good. Word was good. It would keep her sharp, keep her ready. It would keep her from thinking so much. Pearl lined up a throw like a javelin, then stumbled and watched it fly into the sea when she wondered when Rose would be back. _That’s a ridiculous line of thought_ , she scolded herself as she summoned a replacement. _I don’t even know where she went_.

It wasn’t a lie. Pearl really didn’t know. But she had a sneaking suspicion that settled like a chunk of ice in her belly, and no amount of practice she did that day managed to banish it from her mind.

The third time Pearl delivered her ultimatum, she had an audience. It had been storming for hours and water was sheeting off the edge of Obsidian’s hands, forming a curtain of liquid that threatened to cut off the rest of the world completely. All four Crystal Gems gathered in the entrance, unconsciously agreeing to watch the water and wait out the rain together. It would have been idyllic, perfect! -if not for the fact that Rose’s human was with them.

Pearl tried to make him leave when the rain started, (“You won’t _melt_ ,” she said in scathing imitation of a parent in a book she’d read once. “You’re not _sugar_.”), but Amethyst laughed at her and Rose said that of course he was welcome to stay, and unfortunately, that was that. Now the temple entrance was filled with a cacophony of human music which almost managed to drown out the weather. Rose had her arm draped around the human’s left side (Greg, she reminded herself. Rose wanted her to use the name.) and Amethyst was leaning against his right, chewing contentedly on a mouthful of paper and sugar. All three were perched on the edge of the warp pad, conveniently cutting off Pearl’s escape route. Garnet sat by right by the blaring stereo and provided power through a pair of thick cables resting in her palms. She appeared completely unbothered by the noise. There was even a smile on the fusion’s lips.

 _Of course_. _As long as she can show off, she’s happy_. As soon as it entered her mind, Pearl berated herself for the uncharitable thought. There was nothing wrong with Garnet being proud of her powers.

Pearl glowered at the human, at Greg, waiting for a reaction. He didn’t give her one, instead staring, enthralled, into Rose’s eyes as she told him something Pearl couldn’t make out over the sounds. In fact, neither of them reacted, as if they hadn’t even heard her. It was his fault. Rose hadn’t paid proper attention to any of them ever since he broke down their fence and broke into their lives.

Pearl stamped over to the stereo and turned the volume off with a satisfying click. Facing her audience with as much dignity as she could muster, she spoke again, louder.

“Oh Pearl, I’m sorry! We shouldn’t have been blocking the warp pad. Here, I’ll move.”

“It’s not about the warp pad, Rose.”

“I know, I know.” Rose stopped, pouting, in that awkward halfway pose between sitting and standing. Her eyes were big and dark. She sat back down and beckoned Pearl, arms wide and open and welcoming. If Pearl sat next to her, she didn’t need to be a Sapphire to know what would happen next. She could see it in her mind’s eye, as clear as a hologram: if she sat down, those same arms would envelope her in a hug. Rose would kiss her face and hair and gem and tell the others how much she loved Pearl. She would tell stories about all the amazing things she did during the war, while Pearl leaned into her side, blushing and protesting, but not too much. Garnet and Amethyst would gaze admiringly; they’d have heard all the stories before, but there is still something inspiring about the Terrifying Renegade Pearl.

Wishful thinking crept in: maybe the human would realize how inadequate he was and drive away in his van to some other town. Rose would be sad, but Pearl would comfort her and soon she would forget all about Mr. Greg Universe and everything would be the same as it had always been, until another human poked their nose in where they didn’t belong. But no, Pearl’s ego would be soothed for an evening, no more, and absolutely nothing would really change.

Pearl turned and walked into the rain.

She was halfway to the beach and already soaked through when Rose caught up to her. She floated down gently besides Pearl, then hurriedly hop-skipped to keep pace since Pearl hadn’t stopped for her. “Pearl, I didn’t know you felt that badly about it.” Pearl kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. “I don’t love Greg any more than you; I love him different.” Rose was forced to make another bound to keep up as she pleaded. “You’re special to me. You know that.” Another: “I’m sorry.”

Pearl almost turned around for that one. Whether to accept the apology or to laugh in her face, she didn’t know. She didn’t find out.

Rose stopped following her by the time she reached the boardwalk. Pearl resisted the urge to look back to see if she was still standing on the beach or if she had gone back to the temple and found it easier than she expected. The rain had slowed to a steady drumming and solid grey curtain that flattened the half-familiar storefronts into grisaille silhouettes. No humans were visible; they had all retreated from the deluge. Pearl wondered idly if any were at their windows, watching and wondering just what kind of moron would be out and about on a night like this. _Humans, watch and learn. The moron is I!_

Pearl walked through Beach City until she reached the road leading inland. She followed it until it curved, not varying her direction or pace other than an involuntary shudder when she stepped off the relatively clean asphalt into a drainage ditch filled with mud and weeds. Earth creatures wriggled away, and she felt a twinge of resentful satisfaction. At least something on this planet respected her enough to leave her alone. On the other side of the ditch was a grassy field in the process of rapidly becoming a flood meadow. On the other side of the field she could barely make out the blocky, industrial shape of a chemical plant. She recognized it only because of the uproar it caused when it was built, technically outside the city limits but close enough that it almost didn’t matter; one of Amethyst’s friends at the time had been very upset. Apparently, humans didn’t like those kinds of things too close to where they lived, a position that Pearl didn’t understand before but could sympathize with now. It was ugly. Beyond the concrete buildings and chain link fences and parking lots was a highway with six lanes and too many cars. Pearl didn’t know what lay beyond that. More fields, she assumed. More buildings, more houses, more wilderness, another city far away.

She supposed she’d meet them eventually if she kept walking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as our viewpoint character doesn't know how to tell the difference between human genders, human characters will be referred to as they/them regardless of author intent. feel free to make any mental images you want.

It was easy to walk. All Pearl had to do was lift a foot, move it forward, put it down, lift the other, move it forward, and so on and on, ad infinitum. It was mindless, it was a rhythm she could keep in her (metaphorical) sleep. Few impressions of her surroundings made it in through the cotton fog of her head and the ones that did were vague: changes in temperature, airflow, and light, the material under her feet, and the amount of ambient noise transformed as she mindlessly moved, flickering at the edge of her consciousness as she thought about nothing and everything except what she was doing just now. She didn’t get tired; excellent stamina was one of the few inherent advantages of her gem type, one that had served her well in the rebellion. She remembered with fondness being able to train and fight and run for weeks on end, leaving even the Quartzes on their knees in the dust. When they asked her, panting, how she managed it, Pearl would only smile and tell the truth: _I’m a Pearl. We aren’t made to rest_.

The rain had disappeared days ago. The ground here was hot and cracked and the wet scent of the storm had been replaced by worms dying in the sun. She stepped on one and the desiccated skin popped under her foot, shocking Pearl into the present with disgust. As she did her best to scrape herself clean on a tuft of yellow grass, she recognized her surroundings and realized there was a warp pad only a few miles away. She thought about using it and going home. Rose would forgive her outburst, her silliness, and of course Garnet and Amethyst would follow suit. _Poor Pearl, throwing another fit! At least she got it out of her system this time_. Pearl pictured the scene and tasted bitterness at the base of her tongue. She hadn’t done anything to be forgiven for. Going back to be forgiven was the same as admitting she’d done something wrong.

It begs the question: what now?

It isn’t the first time she’s thought about leaving. It isn’t even the first time she’s left. But there seems to be a difference between her very deliberate, public, departure and all the times in the past she’s slipped away to wander for a month and slunk back to the others when she had her fill of solitude.

It bothered her sometimes. During the war, she built the fiction of a Pearl who made her own life, made her own choice, and chose to leave it all behind. The Terrifying Renegade was the one who abandoned her home and her purpose and threw herself into the fight to tear all of it down. Pearl remembered wearing the title with pride as she strutted around the rebel camp, clutching a sabre and interrupting any conversation she pleased, reveling in her self-styled independence. There was a pawky Aquamarine who bowed playfully whenever Pearl swaggered past. Bismuth, who broke any taboo presented her, manhandled her unexpectedly, snagging Pearl’s waist with a lightning elbow and slinging her over broad shoulders. Pearl screamed in mock frustration and kicked and writhed and yanked on handfuls of rainbow locks until they were brawling in the middle of the camp to the cheers and hoots of the other rebels. She wore the Renegade role so easily she could almost forget it wasn’t true.

There was only one other Pearl in the Crystal Gems. She joined too late in the war and the rebels nicknamed her Moon. She had a solemn personality, at wild odds with her dainty, ruffled, appearance, and she made Pearl uncomfortable. Moon was all soft greys and whites ( _like a Diamond_ ) with a round, gleaming belly stone ( _like another one_ ) and she had done what Pearl only claimed she had: she had run away. One of the only times she and Pearl talked, she thanked her.

“I heard about you,” Moon said, voice pitched so only Pearl could hear. “The Renegade.”

“Oh,” said Pearl, because she didn’t know what else to say.

Moon told her the whole story then. Gossip at parties, furtive whispers in the hall, conversations that no one expected her to hear because everyone knew Pearls didn’t eavesdrop. A smuggled file to scrape at the rib of her fan until it was sharp enough to snap off and bury in her Howlite’s eye. Flight past guards too worried about rebels to be concerned with a scurrying Pearl.

“That’s… amazing,” said Pearl.

Moon fixed her with a stare. “You did it first. I tried because I knew it could be done.” Then, almost too soft for Pearl to hear: “Thank you.”

Pearl never felt as low as she did then. She never ran, she only followed. Moon was the real renegade.

Maybe that was why she was so willing to go along with Rose’s plan. Would she gain any kind of freedom, any kind of power from swinging a blade through Pink’s form, even if it was just another order? Even if it was just another lie?

Moon was bubbled now, corrupted with a hairline crack that made her wings glitch and fur billow like waves. Bismuth was long gone. Garnet would never ask about her past and Amethyst had no reason to bring it up. Rose was the only one who might absolve her, but confessing is the one thing she would never let her do.

_Please, let’s never speak of this again._

A car squealed past, leaving the stink of burning rubber on the bitumen. Pearl coughed and mentally berated herself. What was she thinking, running away? She could be back in the temple right now, polishing her sword in her clean, cool room. She should have kept her mouth shut and suffered in silence. She should have just let Rose be happy. What on Earth was she supposed to do on her own?

The sun had long vanished when Pearl was interrupted. Wisps of clouds like strung-apart cotton balls floated through the washed-out charcoal sky. A helicopter droned about, remote and invisible, while cars and trucks sped by down on earth, ruffling Pearl’s hair with their passage. She used her gemlight to illuminate the shoulder of the road. Barrier at her left, traffic on her right. The moon was bright and nearly full.

To distract herself, she decided to pick through her mental catalogue of Rose’s human lovers, comforting herself with their faults. This one fawned miserably and was shorter than Pearl. This one had greasy hair and sang with more enthusiasm than talent. This one was too stupid to take a hint and had their arm broken by Amethyst. Rose healed it immediately, wasting her tears on the twisted limb, while Pearl and Amethyst watched in disapproval. The human stayed, at Rose’s insistence (“Humans are naturally curious! I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm.”) but it was one of the few times Amethyst and Pearl were in agreement about one of Rose’s human friends.

_Honestly, Greg is far from the worst. A buffoon, perhaps, but no worse than that idiot with the donkey, when was that, four hundred years ago… No! I’m not thinking about him. What was wrong with Milo, oh yes: he was clumsy, and had that awful nasally voice…_

Running through the list always makes her feel sick, but she gets a mean bit of pleasure from the miserable routine. They’re all dead and gone and here she is, at- well, not at Rose’s side any longer, but with a much better chance of regaining the position than any of them. Besides, it was her choice to leave.

_…and that is another tangent altogether_. She had the right to leave, of course, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t take it. Pearls like Moon would give anything up for a chance to run away. But if her freedom became an obligation, wasn’t it as meaningful to choose to give it up, or was she rationalizing away her choice? It was all academic, in any case. They were all here, on Earth. The galaxy warp was destroyed. There was nowhere to run away _to._

Her ruminations staggered to a halt as a red eighteen-wheeler pulled onto the shoulder and stopped ahead of her. After a moment, a grizzled human leaned out of a window and shouted, “Hey lady, are you alright? It’s almost 3 a.m.”

“I’m fine.” Pearl replied.

“I’m serious.” The cab door swung open and banged against the guardrail, neatly cutting off Pearl’s plan to just keep walking forward. The driver winced at the sound, but kept clambering out and continued, “You’re pale as death and covered in dirt. How long have you been out here?”

“Are you going to let me by or not?” Pearl challenged, ignoring the questions but enjoying the sound of someone else’s voice. If only it belonged to Amethyst.

The human backed up against the door, raising their hands. “Look, I was just gonna offer you a ride. You look like you could use some help. No offense,” they added hastily. When Pearl didn’t respond immediately: “I’ll leave if you don’t want the ride. I’m taking a risk too, y’know, picking up a hitchhiker.”

Pearl stared and considered her options. The easiest thing to do would be to step back over the guardrail and walk away from the road. They couldn’t pursue her without leaving the truck, something which, if they were anything like Greg, Pearl suspected they would be loath to do. Assuming the human wanted to pursue her, of course. They might just leave. She could leap to the other side of the highway and keep walking on the other shoulder, but that had the risk of attracting more attention. Or- and here she brightened- she could just hit the human and duck under the cab door while they were incapacitated. Humans were fragile; if she used enough force (easy!) this one wouldn’t recover the breath to follow her until she was too far away to bother with. The truck would shield the scene from the road. No pursuit, no attention, and she wouldn’t have to leave the nice, straight road for slippery grass. Pearl curled her hand into a fist and pictured an elegant punch to the solar plexus, followed inevitably by Rose’s disapproval. Pearl mentally flinched, then reaffirmed herself. Rose wasn’t here. Why should she care about Rose? She had options now. She had freedom. She had nothing left to lose.

Pearl sat in the passenger seat, right arm dangling out the open window and knees drawn up in front of her chest to avoid touching a suspicious black stain on the tan upholstery. To their credit, the human hadn’t tried to make conversation beyond asking if she were headed anywhere in particular and not pressing the subject when she answered with a shrug. Pearl stared fixedly into the distance. If she stared hard enough at the scenery, she thought, her immediate surroundings would almost fade away. The wind whipping past did a good job at drowning out the truck’s sound system, though a few disjointed words managed to fight their way to the surface. Something about highways and highlines.

Pearl glared at the speaker. “Can you turn that off?”

The driver looked at her and she added, “I have a headache.” Headaches were the universal human excuse. There was no gem equivalent, but a human who had one could get out of practically anything.

Sure enough, they punched a few buttons and turned a dial. The music stuttered and changed to a deep crooning, much quieter than the original tune. Upon returning her focus to the window, Pearl couldn’t hear it at all. “Thank you.”

The utility poles at the edge of the highway zoomed past, the phone lines cutting a sinusoid path across the scant clouds. The sky reflected the orange streetlamps back down to compete with billboards and headlights and gave the whole scene in a bruised, otherworldly cast. The overall effect was of some kind of technological twilight; electricity had stolen the stars. The tepid wind blew short bursts of music into Pearl’s face: a word here or a phrase there from the open window of a passing vehicle. Groups of hills in the middle distance traveled at an almost leisurely pace while Earth’s single moon hung pale and fat at the edge of the sky. Even as it hurtled around the planet at thousands of miles per hour, the rock inhabited an illusion of stillness and peace.

Pearl, with no destination and a rebellious mind, wished she were that moon.

As Pearl stared aimlessly at one of those tedious hills, her eye caught a flash of green light. Another flash, and for an instant she saw twisting horns and a long, curved face silhouetted against the sickly sky. She started, but the seatbelt cut her short. After a moment of fumbling, she released the buckle and sent the belt reeling back with a snap. “Let me out.”

The driver didn’t look away from the road. “There’s a rest stop about ten miles from here; I don’t wanna pull over again in the middle of the night.” They tapped the steering wheel and bobbed their head in time to the almost-inaudible music. “We should get there pretty soon.”

Pearl tuned them out as soon as it was apparent they weren’t stopping the truck. After a moment studying the door, she flipped up the lock (“Hey!”), opened the door (“Whoa whoa _whoa_ hang on we’re going fifty-five- !!”), and flung herself out to the accompaniment of the driver’s strangled scream.

She tightened herself in midair, tucking her legs and covering her forehead with her arms. Pearl bounced once, twice, rolled a few feet and struck the barrier hard with her back. Her head spun and her teeth ached, but she scrambled upright and ran, crashing, into the undergrowth. On the highway behind her, horns blared, cars screeched to a stop, and a dozen humans were babbling in horror and confusion about the woman they’d just seen try to commit suicide by jumping out of a moving truck.

Pearl barely noticed and couldn’t care less. Her mind was racing almost as fast as her legs on the rocky ground. What was a corrupted gem doing here? Monsters usually avoided human-heavy areas and hundreds must pass through on that highway every day. If that thing ran in front of a car… she thought about traffic accidents and shuddered, unaware of the chaos she’d just caused behind her.

The monster yelped when it saw her and reared briefly before turning to flee on mismatched, spindly legs. Pearl drew her spear, hoping to end the battle quickly, but the throw went wild and barely clipped the creature’s mane before flying off into the darkness. The monster let out a weird, ululating yell and veered violently, hooves churning up the ground, as it pelted towards a stand of trees with Pearl hot in pursuit. As it ran, the glittering fur parted to reveal a brilliant green gemstone embedded between its shoulders. It wasn’t visible for more than a second, but just the glimpse sent a flash of confidence zinging through Pearl. This thing used to be a Demantoid! Poofing it would be easy. All she had to do was catch it.

The monster was obviously built for running, but Pearl’s easy lope quickly closed the gap between herself and the creature’s skittering retreat. She summoned a second spear and held it loosely- no way to tell when the moment to use it would come. She was nearly close enough to strike when her target disappeared into the trees. She slowed down- the moon and distant road lights lit the grass around her enough to be navigable, but under the branches and leaves was impenetrable black- and was about to enter when it raced back out, striking her in the temple with its chest and bowling her over. Her slight form was pushed to the ground immediately. In pure reflex, she shot a laser blast and the creature howled as light singed its underbelly. Pearl reached out, grabbed the last few inches of feathered tail, and found herself being dragged flat on her back. The monster bucked and kicked and jerked Pearl right, left, up and down, trying desperately to shed its burden. Dirt flew into her eyes and stones scraped her exposed limbs as she swung blindly with her spear, eventually making contact with a hind leg. It fell, still baying wildly ( _did this thing ever shut up?_ ), as Pearl struggled to her feet. She raised her spear, ready to poof, and saw two figures resolve out of the gloom. They were Garnet and Amethyst, running uphill in her direction. Pearl froze. The monster, momentarily reprieved, pulled itself upright and fled. Amethyst tucked herself into a spindash to follow the monster’s new trajectory, with Garnet at her heels. Other than an incomprehensible glance from the fusion, there was no indication they saw her.

Pearl watched all three figures disappear and felt like a fool. Of course, the others were hunting it already. Of course, the monster wouldn’t willingly be this close to a highway. They must have chased it here, and if they went to the trouble of getting it to a specific place then there had to be a reason. An ambush, perhaps. An ambush that she just ruined. Her eyes snapped wide as she heard dry grass rustling behind her. She blushed to her hairline, spun around, and beheld the ambusher.

Rose was still only halfway up the hill, but Pearl couldn’t bring herself to enjoy the rare experience of looking down at her. Her sword was held low at her side, her lips parted, and she looked as surprised to see Pearl as her Pearl was to see her. Her opaque black eyes flicked over Pearl and the smaller gem cringed, painfully aware of the scrapes, the dried mud, the matted hair, the dust and weeds plastered to her form. She looked ridiculous. Worse, Rose had just seen her trampled and dragged by a gem monster after blundering into an ambush she wasn’t even a part of, and to her mortification, not even managing to poof it or slow it down. Garnet and Amethyst were running down her mistake right now.

Even worse, she realized with a sinking feeling, they wouldn’t have had an ambush if she hadn’t left. She was the fastest of them except Amethyst, and Pearl could sprint much longer than the Quartz could spindash. If Pearl were there, she would have tracked the monster and harried it from a distance, tiring it out for the others to fight while keeping safely out of the action herself. No humiliating drag or clumsy ambush necessary.

Rose said “Pearl-” and with one gentle word, the spell was broken. Pearl dropped her spear, dissipating it before it hit the ground, and ran. Whatever Rose was about to say, be it pity, pardon, or reproach, it was nothing Pearl was willing to hear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh jeez it's been like for ever but we're almost halfway through??? and i have begun drafting a sequel. opps.

After the bungled fight with the Demantoid, Pearl became unable to avoid the other Crystal Gems. It was hard to tell which incidents were genuine coincidences: one night she went to scavenge weapons from the strawberry battlefield, only to lose her footing and tumble from a floating platform. Pearl barely had time to wish she didn’t land on anything too sharp when Garnet broke her fall. Calling anything involving Garnet random usually strained credibility, but the way they both collapsed and rolled, coupled with the cross-eyed confusion on the fusion’s face when her visor flew off made it hard to believe the incident was preordained. Garnet was either too startled to speak or had the breath knocked out of her and was still trying to stutter out a sentence when Pearl mumbled her apology and dashed for the warp, without the weapons she came for.

Other incidents were less credible in their supposed randomness, particularly when they always seemed to end with her rescue. When Rose appeared from nowhere just in time to throw a shield between Pearl and the Rhodochrosite looking to gore her, it was infuriating. When Amethyst watched her from every ledge as a pigeon and from every alley as a rat, it was suffocating. All Pearl wanted was to be left alone.

On a hunch, she stopped using the warp pads. There were only so many ways the others could track her, and the warp network would be the easiest for them to use without her technical knowledge. Garnet’s future vision obviously played a role, but Pearl knew she needed a direction to look. Her hunch paid off. When she stopped using the warps, the visits stopped too.

Abandoning the warps left her with another problem: getting around. There was nothing to keep her from continuing to walk and hitch rides, but Pearl didn’t enjoy the thought of not knowing where she was. Her mental map of the planet was built around the warp network and without it, she just wasn’t confident in her ability to navigate. What if she unknowingly wandered back to Delmarva? She spent an afternoon rifling through her gem, pulling out every map she owned. Without exception, they were old and fragile and woefully out of date. Pearl carefully unfolded the last one, an ancient vellum square, only to find it didn’t even include the continent she was on.

_That’s it_ , she thought. She needed something up to date. She was going to do something she hadn’t attempted in well over a century. Pearl was going to go to a human city, and she was going to buy a map.

It was easier said than done. Finding the city was no problem, but after making her way through suburbs and parks to a retail district, Pearl was lost. She wandered in and out of several establishments before an indifferent cashier took pity on her. “There’s a bookstore a few blocks down,” they said, blinking slowly behind a fringe of greasy hair. “It’s kind of a dump, but they oughta have a road atlas. Just take a right out of here and keep going; it’s got green curtains in the windows and there’s an ashtray outside shaped like a duck.” Pearl thanked the employee and set out again, filled with a sense of accomplishment and purpose. _That hadn’t been so bad_.

After traveling a block and a half, attention divided between avoiding gum on the sidewalk and watching for green curtains, Pearl noticed that she was being followed. The mutt wasn’t stealthy in the least; the wet sound of its breathing and the scratch of its claws on the pavement broadcast its location to anyone who cared about the location of a stray dog. Pearl wondered why it was following her. Surely she didn’t smell like food? At least it didn’t try to follow her inside the store with green curtains, instead content to flop bonelessly outside and pant.

The bookstore was large and disorganized, much like its owner. The human rang up Rand McNally’s latest without a word, but barely glanced at the handful of quarter eagle coins Pearl offered before shaking their head. “I can’t take that.”

“Why not?”

The human raised an eyebrow. “I only take real money.”

“Don’t worry, none of these are counterfeit.” She gave her best approximation of a reassuring smile and dropped the coins on the counter. Maybe they just didn’t want to touch her hand.

The eyebrow didn’t budge. “I meant U.S. money, not Canadian pennies or whatever the hell these are.”

“These are coins issued by your own government, minted in your own country. You’re required to take them.” She pushed them across the counter.

“They don’t look like any coins I’ve seen before.” They pushed them back.

“They’re legal tender!”

After a few more back and forth remarks, the human politely requested that Pearl get the hell out before they called the cops on her and her funny money. _Make me_ , Pearl wanted to say, but gathered up her coins in bad grace and complied. Before leaving, she treated the storeowner to a hand gesture. She didn’t know what it meant, but Amethyst had used it to scandalize more than one of Rose’s suitors after picking it up a few centuries ago. With any luck, it was devastating. She closed the door with more force than necessary, listened to the bells jangle, and kicked the threshold. What a waste of time.

The dog was still there. Pearl clapped her hands at it. “Shoo!”

The animal turned its head at the sound and looked at Pearl with wet doggy eyes. “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Scat! Scram! Get out of here!” She took a threatening step forwards, which finally seemed to spur the animal to action. The mutt dolefully heaved itself upright and tottered away.

A passing human child pointed at it and tugged on their parent’s skirt. “Mom, look! A purple dog!”

Mom gave a brief look. “It’s white dear, just dirty.”

Pearl whipped around, but the tip of the animal’s tail was already disappearing into an alley. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember- was it a regular dirty dog, or had there been a hint of lavender under all that grime? It wouldn’t have been hard to conceal a gem under that fur. She hadn’t been paying attention- it was just a dog! Panic fluttered in Pearl’s chest, but she pushed it down. Human children were fanciful. Cities were full of strays. Still, a spark of rightful indignation wormed its way into her. Excepting Rose, she was the oldest gem on the planet. She didn’t need to be watched over and spied on and babysat. She could take care of herself.

Even if she were just being egotistical and paranoid. Even if it was just a dirty dog.

She stalked away.

As she walked and stewed, Pearl’s shoes scraped deliberately on the pavement. The grating motion sent jitters through her form and she focused on that, the roughness and resistance, instead of everything else. She scraped past a hunched and chalk-stained screever, resolutely covering an empty parking lot with irises. Pearl snorted. It was ridiculously temporary work, even by human standards. What was the point? To pour yourself into something and lose it on purpose?

The human never looked up from their work, even when Pearl walked obstinately over the portion of it that spilled onto the sidewalk. Her feet blurred the petals and stems and picked up specks of purple and green, which stayed with her until the grass rubbed them off.

Pearl learned her lesson from the bookseller. She kept her money to herself and didn’t try buying another map before leaving the city for fields and forests and roads, where no one harassed her for trying to participate in commerce. She took a pen from an unattended counter, used it to mark the locations of all the warps and gem sites she knew in her brand-new road atlas (also stolen), and planned a winding, southward route to keep as much distance between them and her as possible.

In theory, she should have been able to avoid gem monsters as well as her erstwhile friends. In practice, her isolated magical signature was more conspicuous than ever and Pearl found herself ambushed on a near-weekly basis by corrupted corundums, beryls, and quartzes.

She was loitering outside a truck stop in the mountains when the Citrine appeared. Pearl stood on the grass, gazing across the parking lot and trying to work up her nerve to approach one of the drivers to try and bum a ride when she spotted it prowling alone on the other side of an aboveground diesel tank. She weighed her options- Had it seen her yet. Could she sneak away? But no, if it found her once, there was nothing to stop it from finding her again. Best to have the fight now

She shot a regretful glance at the milling humans and heavy machinery. As tempting as trying a sneak attack was, this was not the place. Pearl stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Heads snapped up all around the parking lot. One human winced and held their ears. Others swung around, searching for the sound. The monster simply charged. Humans dashed out of its path, yelling and tripping. Pearl stood her ground and let it get a good, clear look. When it built up too much momentum to simply stop, Pearl turned and dashed up the mountain.

The air was crisp, and the sky was a pure sapphire blue. Pearl ran easily, sliding occasionally on drifts of fallen leaves. She heard the monster bellow behind her- too far behind- and slowed just a bit. _Let it get close, just not close enough to catch you_.

_Until you let it, that is_.

Pearl let the monster catch her in a clearing about halfway up the mountain. A warp pad indicated this was a place of some gem significance, and Pearl cursed herself for not knowing what it could be. There were possibilities: the site of a never-constructed spire, the entrance to a secret underground hideaway Rose never bothered to tell her about, or even a sightseeing spot for elites to appreciate the beauty of the planet they were about to destroy. The one thing it wasn’t was an arena, even though it was high enough in the air to be one. She was trying desperately to remember strategies for close-quarters fighting when the beast pushed through the trees and thorn bushes and charged.

Pearl sidestepped like a matador. A rush of air passed her when the monster charged; she summoned her spear and slashed at its tail before it could turn. It rounded on her, screeching and slavering, but Pearl had already scrambled to safety up a tree. She hurled lasers from the branches, and it locked its horns in the trunk to shake her down. She jumped just before the tree fell, landed behind the monster, and stabbed. It roared and whirled, she leapt away, and the dance began again. Pearl continued to dodge and somersault, take any opportunity she could to land a hit, and it spun, slashing indiscriminately with serrated tusks and claws. It was a battle of wits and attrition: could Pearl tire the monster out enough to get close and win, or would it land the one good hit needed to poof the less durable gem?

Pearl locked the haft of her spear in the monster’s jaws, digging her heels into the loose pebbles and dirt. It slavered and clawed at the ground, blowing hot breath in her face. She prepared to drop it and duck, letting it throw itself forward where she wouldn’t be anymore, hopefully stumble for long enough she could spring into another tree and- the warp pad sang out.

As her teammates arrived in a stream of light, Pearl dropped the spear but forgot to run. Claws sliced through her torso at the same moment she locked eyes with Rose and watched her expression morph from shock to horror. Someone, it was impossible to tell who, shouted her name. Something exploded and she went flying through a screen of desiccated brambles. Her form dissipated. All her limited senses could perceive was a chaotic, bouncing, fall.

Before she lost the ability to think, fear roared in her mind like whitewater. Pearl was poofed and helpless, tumbling down a mountainside. The others would make short work of the monster and when they had, they’d find her and bring her back. Would she be comforted? Scolded? If they didn’t find her, what then? She had never reformed alone before, let alone lost in the wilderness. What if an animal ran off with her? She felt anticipation: What form would she take? Rose always said she’d be beautiful in any form she chose, but Pearl always made beautiful forms to please Rose. Now there was no one to please but herself. It was a frightening thought. Then there was anger. She was winning the fight! She would never have been poofed if they hadn’t distracted her, if Rose hadn’t pulled her attention away. This was _her_ fault!

Pearl hit the water with a splash. _Why won’t she just leave me alone?_

By the time Pearl regained consciousness, the stream had carried her far downs the mountain and wedged her between two flat river stones. Plants trailed in the water. A crayfish dug into the clay beneath her, methodically removing bits of gravel and mud. She wobbled. The current applied more pressure. She started to turn. The crayfish pushed aside a green pebble and Pearl was forced free. Minnows scattered and the crayfish scooted away, fleeing from the alien in their midst as she began to glow. Regeneration was a real effort, as she pitted her light against the running water, but once she broke the surface it was easy to expand into her full form. Pearl stretched luxuriously as she came back, relishing the feel of fingers and limbs, of cold water on her legs and a predawn breeze on her face.

As Pearl straightened up, she took stock of her surroundings. It was dark. She was standing in a creek. The water lapped merrily at midcalf, its burbling providing the only sound in the otherwise silent forest. A blue blaze painted on a dying tree marked a well-worn trail along the shore but, thankfully, it was deserted. There were no gems in evidence either- _unless they were hiding_ \- but no, no. If the others found her, they would bring her back to the temple, not leave her underwater at the mercy of little crawling things. The only witnesses to her return were a pair of deer, frozen on the opposite bank. As she turned her head they burst into motion, white tails flashing as they fled into the trees. Then they were gone, and she was alone.

Pearl sloshed to the shore, picking her way carefully around the remains of a shattered beer bottle in the process of being washed away. The jagged glass glinting in the dark made something squirm inside her, but she pushed it down and nudged some of the shards away with her foot. It was only glass.

The sharp reminder of humanity had her looking around again, but it seemed the predawn hours weren’t popular with hikers. She couldn’t stay here, not for long, but she had until sunrise to make sure everything was in order with her form.

Her shawl was gone- so far, so good. The draping fabric was now bunched around Pearl’s shoulders and chest, forming a wad of padding that while not aesthetic, would hopefully help protect against maulings like the one that landed her in this creek in the first place. Her shorts were lengthened to just above her knees. The legwarmers and flats were replaced by short pink boots with blue soles. Pearl raised a foot and ran her fingers down the bumps on the sole. Good… she had managed a decent tread. She stamped and allowed herself a second of pleasure at the _crunch_ as she crushed a small acorn. There was something she couldn’t do in flats!

Her hands were covered by dark grey gloves. Pearl plucked at the faux-fabric between her fingers and admired the color; she hadn’t been sure she could pull off something so far from her usual palette, but Pearls were unusually flexible in that respect. They had to be. There was no telling what gem type they might be called to match… her smile faltered. She hadn’t truly matched Rose in millennia, but she always picked colors to complement her. Besides, Rose liked blue. Did Rose like grey? Pearl couldn’t think of a single time Rose had expressed an opinion about grey. _It doesn’t matter if she likes it. She’ll never see it. I like it._

The thought gave her pause. Did she like it?

_It doesn’t matter if anyone likes it. Even me_.

The first rays of dawn were filtering through the trees. Humans could be arriving any moment now.

One last thing- Pearl raised her hands to her hair. She didn’t think she’d changed it but regenerations, especially unplanned ones, could be tricky and it never hurt to double check. Sure enough, somehow, it had grown. Only by a few inches, but any inches were a few too many. It had to go.

Pearl had dozen of pairs of scissors stored in her gem, not counting shears, razors, knives and other assorted blade, but instead of summoning any of them she reached down and picked up the largest fragment of the unfortunate bottle. It sat right with her somehow, using something broken and thrown away to adjust the very first form of her new life. As Pearl hacked away, hunks falling away in sparkles of light, she realized this was the first time she admitted to herself that she was doing something truly new. She’d run from every opportunity to rejoin her friends- didn’t that mean something, deep down? The thought of leaving shook her to her very core, but wasn’t joining the rebellion just as dangerous, just as unprecedented? _No_ , she thought, _it wasn’t. Rose was there_. Even if Rose had tried so hard to offer one, there had been no choice in that for Pearl. But Rose wasn’t here. Everything she was doing now was a choice.

Deep in thought, she didn’t notice until too late that her hair was far shorter than intended. It was a terrible job: ugly and uneven, with little wisps pointing in every direction from a cowlick Pearl never even knew she had. It wasn’t worth fixing now. Maybe in her next form. Right now, she had no one to impress.

Pearl shook free the last strands of hair and held the broken bottle up to the light, watching the orange dawn glow through the glass. It glinted off jagged edges and made the few blue scraps of label still stuck to it almost translucent. It was obviously broken, a piece of trash abandoned in the wilderness by people too drunk or careless to even dispose of it properly. She dropped it in her boot and felt its cool weight settle against her ankle. Maybe later she would stow it in her gem, but right now it felt right to carry it in a more physical way.

Then after looking furtively in both directions, she wasn’t sure for what, Pearl followed the trail down the mountain. The sun was risen. She had somewhere else to be.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's been like forever since i posted last- first there was school and then the world fell apart and i think i rewrote this chapter like a bajillion times but i don't know if it actually made it better
> 
> i have read /all/ the comments and i appreciate them so much!! i'm really glad people are liking my story. i haven't responded to any individually but everyone who commented: thank you thank you i appreciate you so much!

If the Crystal Gems wanted to win the war, Rose would say, they couldn’t fight like Homeworld. They had to fight like _Crystal Gems_.

Pearl knew it was rhetoric. It was a way to get gems fired up, enthusiastic, it was a way to start emphasizing a shared identity for dozens of different gem types who joined for as many different reasons. _We are not Homeworld: we are Crystal Gems, and we are going to_ win!

It was practical. More than that, it was necessary. They just didn’t have the numbers to face Homeworld head on. Strategies that depended on platoons of Obsidians and Quartzes were less than useless to their rag-tag band of defects, runaways, and precious few soldiers. So they improvised, experimenting with ambushes, pincers, and feints, relying more on unpredictability than skill.

There was one tall black Onyx in particular known for rushing ahead of her comrades and throwing herself into Homeworld ranks, shouting and striking with her weapon and deliberately making as much confusion as she could. Their lines would break as some clustered to attack her and others fled or faltered, leaving plenty of openings for Pearl and her ilk. Onyx never ended a fight unpoofed, but when she reformed she was always grinning and laughing and boasting about how many gems she’d been able to take down with her. Pearl admired her for many reasons (her unselfconsciousness, her elegantly marbled skin, her encyclopedic knowledge of Earth’s insects) but try as she must, this she could not understand.

The Crystal Gems were hiding out in a wrecked temple on the shore of a shallow, brackish lake. It was the site of one of the rebellion’s first successful sabotages, but there was a spot on the north shore rich enough to be considered for a possible Kindergarten site, risk of rebel activity be damned. A team of Peridots was warping in two days from now for a secondary survey, but with the kind of carelessness that was becoming more and more characteristic of Earth’s Diamond these day, Pink had neglected to assign them an escort. _She’s slipping!_ _She’s scared!_ the rebels told each other and laughed. _We must have her shaking like a new-made Chalk._

Unfortunately, Rose was off on a secret mission of her own that had nothing to do with Pink Diamond being unable to wriggle out of an inspection tour of the planet’s newest spires. So instead of joining the other rebels playing in the water or sleeping in the sun, Pearl went to find Onyx.

She wasn’t hard to find. Onyx was kneeling by the water’s edge, cheerfully disregarding the muck flecking her bare knees. Despite the myriad of tiny things buzzing around her head, she immediately noticed Pearl’s approach. “Look at these!” she exclaimed and waved Pearl over. “I’ve never seen them before!”

Pearl peered at the indicated bug and flinched when it burst into flight just inches from her face. “It’s a dragonfly.”

“It looks like it, doesn’t it? But see the wings!” Onyx pointed at another insect. “Dragonfly wings point outwards when they sit down. The wings on these ones point backwards. When I get the chance, I’m going to find some local humans and ask them.”

“They might not know,” _Or care_ , Pearl added mentally.

“I can still ask.”

The two sat in silence, Onyx gazing contentedly at her insects, and Pearl wondering how best to ask what she wanted to. There was a splash as a fish ate one of the bugs.

“Why do you get poofed on purpose?” Terrifying renegades weren’t supposed to be polite.

“Huh?”

“When you fight, you run straight into danger.” Pearl hugged her knees and stared out at the lake. “It’s like you don’t care what happens to you. Even Rubies don’t attack like that.”

Onyx looked shocked. “Pearl! Of course I care what happens to me! I’m not trying to get myself shattered, like Basanite was. It’s just…” She stopped talking and started to play with her hands, bending her fingers this way and that. She had big, rough, hands. Warrior’s hands. “I trust you. I run in like that because I know the Crystal Gems are going to pick me up and bring me back home. I trust you.”

Pearl couldn’t fault Onyx’s argument; she could count on the fingers of one hand every time they’d been forced to leave a member on the battlefield, and all but one of them had been rescued. Poor Basanite had disappeared entirely, only to be spotted at a cloud arena months later. The gossip said that she’d been rejuvenated. Pearl still didn’t know how she felt about that.

Instead, she said, “I’m always afraid of being poofed. I’m so slow at reforming; I’m afraid that I’ll miss something important while I’m gone. I’m afraid that something will happen, something I could have prevented if I were there.” _I’m afraid Rose will be poofed and I won’t be able to hide her gem_. Her fingers twitched.

“But I’ve seen you poof to protect Rose- ”

“That’s _different_!” Pearl almost shouted, and grabbed her wrist in what she hoped would come across as a nervous gesture. “She’s different. And, and, I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want anyone getting poofed or captured trying to get me off of a battlefield. I’m afraid of letting you all down. Did you know Aquamarine’s started calling me ‘My Pearl?”

Tentatively, “I’m sure she’s joking.”

“Of course she’s joking! Everything’s a joke to her. It’s not like I mind. I like it when she acts like I’m important.” Pearl slumped forward, drained. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

There was a moment of silence, then Onyx spoke. “Do you want to know what I’m afraid of?”

Pearl didn’t speak, but she nodded.

“I’m afraid of fighting.” She held up her hands as defense from Pearl’s incredulous look. “I swear! It’s part of why I ran off in the first place. I’m terrified every time there’s a battle. Tomorrow, all we have to do is scare off a group of unarmed Peridots and I’m shaking just thinking about it. Why do you think I almost never spar?”

“But when you fight- ”

“If I run in really fast, I don’t have to think about it. If I get poofed in the first ten minutes, I don’t have to experience the rest. I hate every second of it and I always have. When this war is over, win or lose, I’m never fighting anything again.”

There was nothing to say to that. It was a long time, too long, where they both sat and stared into the muddy water, before the silence was finally broken. “I think you might be the bravest gem I know.”

After her first regeneration alone, Pearl became less careful with her form. She charged into battle- not because it frightened her, like Onyx, but because finally, it didn’t. No one would be distracted trying to help her. She didn’t have to stay formed to watch anyone’s back because there was no one’s back to watch. She wouldn’t have to deal with the humiliation of anyone knowing that the Renegade managed to lose a fight. If she took a week or two to reform, no one’s schedule would be thrown off waiting for her. Of course, they said they didn’t mind, and Pearl didn’t mind waiting for Garnet or Amethyst, but it was different when it was her. She knew it was. Now, there was no one to inconvenience but herself.

Even better, she found she _enjoyed_ experimenting with her form. The gloves came from defiance and the boots from necessity, but Pearl started to change more and more for herself.

The vulnerability of poofing still frightened her, but the more frequently it happened the more often exhilaration overrode her fear. Pearl changed with every form. She could make mistakes now that nobody would see. She experimented with sashes, shoulder pads, and different styles of skirts. Her gloves crept up and down her arms and only disappeared once or twice. Sleeves appeared, were discarded, and tentatively brought back. She endlessly adjusted the fit and tread of her boots. Her shorts lengthened, then loosened, and eventually disappeared under a pair of stiff human jeans, stolen from a washing line. They were heavy and textured and made everything more difficult and Pearl enjoyed them thoroughly. She liked the resistance when she bent a knee. She liked the weight which held her down and kept her present. She liked the way they were darker in the rain and how the _feeling_ changed as water permeated the fabric, making them sodden and cold and scratchy on her skin.

Pearl liked work, she discovered so long ago. She liked effort and struggle and looking towards a goal and she liked it all the better if she succeeded in the end. Her life before may have been tedious and terrifying it turns, but it was always _easy_. Difficulty in a task meant that it was not meant for her, and she should summon a Peridot or Gypsum to take care of whatever it was before it caused some inconvenience to Her Diamond. Every time the Renegade ran up against something she wasn’t meant to do, something like piloting or wrestling or tolerating the various saps and oozes of Earth’s plant life, Pearl threw herself into it headfirst. Even if she failed, the simple fact that she _could_ fail was itself a tiny victory.

She pushed her palette to its limit, straining with every form to become darker and more saturated. Her blues became royal, her pinks deeper, and her yellows golden. Red was outside of her gamut entirely, but the first time she managed a stripe of forest green across her chest, Pearl beamed with pride. It was gaudy. It was clashing. It was ever-changing and there was no gem in existence it would match. It was loud and ugly and it was _hers_.

The one thing that wasn’t, it seemed, was her hair. She never used to think about it, but now it infuriated her. It refused to change color, stubbornly staying that peachy orange pink, almost mockingly pastel compared to the rest of her. It felt longer every time she reformed and even as an illusion, the way it tickled her nape was unbearable. The bottle had disappeared ages ago, but for regeneration after regeneration Pearl made a point of hacking the excess away with scissors and razors and long knives before giving up and tying it out of the way with a piece of wire. She didn’t like it, but she could live with it, and tying it away took up less time in her routine.

When Pearl discovered her star was missing, she was disturbed. It was less the disappearance that bothered her than the fact that she didn’t know when it happened. The thing was hard to keep track of; it shrunk and skipped around her body- black on a shirtsleeve, pink on her back- until one day it was gone, and she didn’t even know if it had disappeared with this form or the last.

As a replacement, she shoplifted an enamel comet with a rainbow tail, the kind that humans called a shooting star, and pinned it to the front of her jeans. The colors reminded her of Bismuth, and when she lost the pin a year later she mourned it for that reason and that reason alone. She didn’t try to form another star.

The motorcycle was more complicated to acquire. A few weeks of scrounging and pickpocketing was enough to come up with the money, only for the human behind the counter to look down their nose and tell Pearl they needed a _credit card_ and a _valid photo ID_ , not piles of change and crinkled bills. Pearl didn’t argue, only gathered her now-useless funds and left. She had learned long ago that in these types of situations, trying to use logic only made things worse.

The next wallet she took belonged to a human of her same height and similar coloration- not an exact match, but no one but another Pearl would be. They lounged on a bench, knees apart but feet together, too engrossed in a magazine to feel Pearl’s fingers dip into and out of their jacket, draped casually over the back of the bench. She took the cards and left the money, plus a little extra to make up for the theft.

She forced her hair into bangs to match the photos and hide her gem, then went to the _other_ agency. This one was staffed by a much more agreeable human, who patiently explained the rental process, as well as which cards were necessary. (Gym membership, no, driver’s license, yes. Library card, no, Visa, yes) Pearl thanked the human profusely for their help and left fully kitted out with a terrifyingly loud motorcycle, a set of wheel locks, and a helmet which she promptly dropped into a garbage can along with the rest of the IDs and the rental agreement saying she was to return the bike in two days.

After a late-night trip to a Harley dealer in the next town to swap out the tags, the bike was hers. Pearl was pleased with herself. No longer would she be forced to rely on the goodwill of passing drivers for lifts or buy bus tickets with scrounged and stolen change when she didn’t want to walk. She had her own transportation now, a human mechanism which she could tinker with and modify to her heart’s content. It was loud and it stunk and when she rode it the vibrations were violent enough to rattle her gem, but all that barely mattered. It was hers. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What has it been? Three months?

It pained Pearl to admit it, but the motorcycle was one of her better decisions.

It was hard to imagine that such a human thing could be so good, but just somehow they had gotten it right. It was faster than walking, more private than a bus, and more reliable than bumming rides from passing truckers with cramped cabs and crackling speakers that played music that all sounded the same. And above all that- it was a machine. And it was hers. She’d never had equipment of her own to tinker with; the rebellion’s weapons and computers and ships belonged to everyone and much of it was too precious and hard-won to risk damaging with an unwise modification. Any tampering she did had to be careful, reversible, and most of all, justified.

Afterwards… well, Rose and Amethyst had their collections of human things, and Pearl had a trove of weapons and trinkets, but _never_ anything like this. Humans weren’t capable of building such things until oh-so-recently and Rose had never been as interested in human engineering as the engineers themselves.

The bike just touched the upper size of what she could safely store in her gem and gave her a headache when she kept it stowed for too long- not that she needed an excuse to use the thing whenever she could. Working on the bike was more entertaining than anything Pearl had done in a long time and she dove into it. She tripled its gas mileage, first. Gas stations were infuriating places, even after dealing with buying gas; they stunk and the humans there were too friendly for her comfort. It was none of their business where she was going, thank you very much! She quartered its emissions, partly to control the smell and partly to prove that she could. She reinforced the tires and frame so she wouldn’t be restricted to highway travel. She doubled its speed. She added a feuter for her spear, however rarely she might need it. She pasted a star decal on the gas tank. She changed her mind and covered it with a rose. She changed her mind again, sanded them both off and repainted the whole thing navy blue. On her next regeneration, she padded her gloves, added wrist straps, and then they were there to stay.

When Pearl wasn’t working on her bike or tracking down gem monsters, she thought about music. Maybe she just wanted something to drown out the jagged roar that no muffler improvement could totally stifle. In moments of desperation, she projected holograms of ancient, half-remembered Homeworld concerts and rode out the bland performances, torn between revulsion and nostalgia. She came close to memories of rebel songs, of Snowflake’s bass rumble and the off-key piping of a dozen reedy Rubies. She longed to hear Bismuth again, throwing out clumsy rhymes about toppling spires and earning Homeworld’s ire. Instead, she sang herself. The old songs felt sour in her mouth, saturated in memories both bad and good, but she didn’t know any new ones. Eventually, she turned to the locals. It was all she had left.

It didn’t take long for Pearl to become expert at lurking around the edges of concerts and loitering in bars, at least until confronted and forced to admit that no, she wasn’t planning on ordering anything. She learned to recognize the screech of a fiddle, the twang of a bass, the plink of a piano, and the bray of a trumpet. A lot of it was awful, enough tolerable, and even the worst of it was new.

One night, on her quest for human music, Pearl found herself leaning against the shadowy back wall of a club between two restroom doors. The building was dimly lit, claustrophobic, and smelled like cigarettes and sweat. Most of the patrons preferred to sit and drink than make use of the admittedly shabby dancefloor. Only one dancer shakily swayed and grooved alone, resolutely ignoring the rest of the club, who ignored them in turn. _Not worth the cover_ , she thought derisively, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t paid it. If the owners didn’t want people sneaking in, their patio fence should have been harder to climb. As she ruminated, the music slowed, started again, and changed- languid, layered, guitar came curling out of the speakers and Pearl’s figurative ears perked up at the unfamiliar song. A wavering voice sang about love, and want, and forgetting, and Pearl closed her eyes, relaxing against the dirty wall.

A tall figure stumbled past her, reeking of alcohol and startling Pearl out of her reverie. “Fuckin’ Divinyls,” they grunted to no one in particular. “I hate this fuckin’ song.” They had a hand on the doorframe, about to head inside when they suddenly doubled over. A grimace contorted their face, and Pearl was already darting forward in ancient instinct, ready to catch them and offer help, when the human straightened up, convulsed, and vomited all over her legs.

After only a flicker of hesitation, Pearl kicked them where she knew it would hurt and left the club the same way she came in. She stripped off her jeans and dropped them in the parking lot before driving off; she’d just have to drive bare legged until she found another pair.

Pearl steals a guitar. It’s red and black and much nicer than Greg’s, a fact that made her preen until she realized too late it couldn’t fully function without an amplifier and some sort of power source. She gets rid of it and acquired another, smaller and simpler and made of golden-red wood that she polishes until it gleamed. The metal strings can’t hurt her fingers no matter how hard she presses, and so it’s no hardship for her to spend hours and hours in practice, staring intently at a projection and doing her best to imitate the musician’s recorded notes. When she’s sure she has the basics down, she plinks out a reasonable imitation of the fuckin’ Divinyls, then other human music she’s heard. She even tries to adapt gem songs to the instrument. Long trial-and-error sessions of plinking and plunking yield varying success, but the effort of taking something so old and established and never-for-her and forcing it into her metal strings and wooden box feels _good_.

One day she makes a few dollars busking on a corner, trotting out her renditions of Diamond anthems and Quartz barrack room tunes. Some of the lyrics are funny, even if they don’t quite translate, but she keeps her mouth shut. She isn’t about to sing for random humans, even if they don’t know the first thing about Pearls.

“That’s pretty neat,” says one human, dropping a crumpled bill in the instrument case. “It’s real different. Did you write it?”

“No,” Pearl replies, strumming absently.

“What’s it called? Does it have a name?”

_Glory for Pink_. “It’s just an old tune. No one sings it anymore.”

The human looks like they want to ask more, but then Pearl starts into a new set of chords, back straight, eyes front, and eventually, they leave. She makes nearly enough for a full tank of gas.

It’s in the red desert that she realizes the difference between gem and human music- not only the tones and phrasing and the way they grate differently on her throat. Gems sing about glory. Gem songs are tributes to the Diamonds, or odes to the stars. When sadness creeps in, it is never for the singer. Pearl is sure that thousands of Homeworld Pearls have sung dirges for Pink. Humans sing for others, but so many- too many!- of their songs are for themselves. And so many of their songs are about love.

The last stars fade from an azure sky as Pearl leans on her bike, which in turn leans against a towering boojum tree. Nighttime insects buzz, interested, around her hologram which grainily loops the finger movements of a singer Pearl saw the past night. They sang love songs, sad songs, and Pearl barely mouths the words as she watches and learns the tune. The hologram blinks out, leaving the bugs to swarm confusedly and disperse, and Pearl plays it on her own. Her thoughts wander, like always, to Rose. She wondered how Rose is doing. She wonders what the last monster she bubbled was. She wonders which of her human songs Rose would like the best. She wonders if Greg knew any of them and if he played them for her. Was Greg even still around? He could have gotten overwhelmed and drove away, or even died. _Poor Rose_ , she thought meanly, plucking the thinnest string and letting a long, high, E shiver into the air. _How will she cope with no admirers_? _No one to flatter her, no one to kiss or caress… it must be torture!_

_No one to fuse with._

Here Pearl falters, where her bitterness had no choice but to give in to truth. Rose had Amethyst and Garnet. Pearl was the one that was alone.

She missed fusion. She’d dabbled in human dance, learned to play their music, and forgone warp travel entirely, but there was no human substitute for fusion. None of their drugs could simulate the feeling of becoming someone else even if she were able to metabolize them. She’d had sex, just once, and was profoundly disappointed. She missed Rainbow Quartz and she wondered if the others did as well. She missed Opal, and Sardonyx, and Alexandrite, and the others. Even Obsidian, for all that she existed so rarely.

Pearl strummed hard, a low minor chord. The music reverberated up the neck of the guitar, setting her form abuzz. The sunrise turned the sky fiery orange and rendered the xeric shrubs and trees in twisting silhouettes.

Once, in a moment of desperation, Pearl slept. It was on a long autumn bus ride west, crowded and full of suppressed noise. She made herself as small as possible and faced the window, where she stared at the glass and regretted her decision to trap herself for the next six hours. Instead of spending it all stewing in her thoughts, she slept and half-hoped she would dream of fusion. For once her mind complied but the dreams were double edged. Fusion featured only in shifting identities and trite, timeworn memories of the war; she was Rainbow Quartz calling warcries and sweeping enemies aside with a kick. She was Sardonyx smashing bases with her hammer and laughing at every fallen piece of stone. She was Pearl on the final battlefield, running between explosions and fleeing ships, looking up at Diamonds shining in the darkness and their song was as liquid as the rain washing the dust of shattered gems from her feet. Then, before the worst could happen yet again, the world lurched and sent her toppling into pink curls and zaftig Quartzes. They were Rose, of course - or weren’t they - or didn’t it matter at all? As she ruminated, they comforted her with strong hands and plush lips until Pearl woke up not knowing if it was the first or second nightmare that made her sick. As her eyes blinked open, she caught the gaze of a staring human passenger and slapped a hand to her forehead. Had she projected, or simply glowed? Either was humiliating enough.

Pearl barely managed to stay put for the rest of the ride, huddled in her seat and glaring discouragement at anyone who dared to glance in her direction. Every non-existent muscle in her body was wound as tight as a metal string, ready to break, ready to run, if there were anywhere _to_ run in this ridiculous metal box. She didn’t sleep again that night, only stared out the window and watched the sky fade from black to violet and tried to wait out her loneliness and fear in peace.

It isn’t about Greg anymore. It isn’t even about Rose. Her old leman can fall in love with every human on the continent for all she cares. It’s about Pearl, her exploration, her independence. She needs to know what she can become by herself, with no other gems and their expectations, with no one to serve or suck up to. She tells herself this as she claws furiously, tunelessly at the strings. One breaks with a twang and snaps back across her face. It hurts.

By the stars, she misses them.

She can’t go back. Not now, not yet.

Pearl looks down at the guitar and after a moment, starts unscrewing the peg. Her other hand comes up, almost absentmindedly, to stroke the deep score just under her left eye. Would the force of the snapping string have been enough to scratch her gem? She needs to be more careful. If she were shattered somewhere out here, no one would tell Rose.

For all Rose knows, she could be shattered already. Never mind that she was regularly sending bubbles back to the temple; it wasn’t as if anybody ever bothered counting them. She carefully pulled the ruined string free and stowed it in her gem before doing the same to the guitar. Next time she was in a town, she’d have to shoplift a pack of spares.

The sun was fully up. Pearl was debating the merits of going back to the road to find a town and a new string when she heard a soft hooting in the distance. There was the monster; she had almost started to doubt it was here. No need to bother locking up the bike; no human in the world could drive it away after what she’s done to it. Pearl drew her spear and jogged purposefully into the scrub.

Rose appeared on the warp pad, already looking around even before the warp stream fully dissipated. There was nothing living visible except for the omnipresent desert brush and a single bird high above, silhouetted against the burning blue sky. She stepped off the pad, her toes sinking into the sand, and nearly stepped on an ivory colored bubble containing a round, red stone. Rose stooped to pick it up and stayed crouched for a second longer than necessary as her fingers brushed against something unexpected. The broken top of an ocotillo lay beneath the bubble, looking like any plant debris. A small shower of sand fell from its petals as Rose picked it up. She turned around, a full circle, looking out at the scrubland. The bird above had flown off. A tiny lizard scurried across the top of a flat boulder. Fat cacti squatted among xeric wildflowers waving gently in the barely-there breeze. No ocotillo were in evidence.

Rose sent the bubble away. She tucked the flower into her dress and after a final searching look, mounted the warp pad. For a split second, the sun was outshone by the brilliant warp light. Rose was gone.

Pearl didn’t dare move. She crouched low behind a mallow bush, hands over her mouth. She hadn’t seen Rose- she didn’t dare!- but she would have had to be dissipated or deaf not to have heard the swish of her skirts, not to mention the activating warp. She didn’t know if Rose had sensed her. Pearls were good at going unnoticed, and Rose’s skillset wasn’t focused on keen observation. Pearl crept out of her hiding place, the pink, globelike flowers seemingly loathe to let her go the way they clung to her form. The bubble was gone, as was the impulsive flower. The bare footprints and swept skirtmarks did nothing but confirm what Pearl already knew. A pink petal was partially buried in the sandy hollow of a heel print. A response? Or just a scrap of unconscious debris? Pearl picked it up, crushing it slightly, and rolled the velvet texture between her fingers. For the first time in in years, she inhaled the foreign scent of roses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garnet: Hey Rose, you should go check out this warp pad. 
> 
> Rose: Uhhhh why? What's out there?
> 
> Garnet: *sunglasses glint mysteriously* Nothin'.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (other than the second paragraph, which was embarrassingly difficult for some reason) I think took the least rewriting to get from second to final draft. I don't how evident or what kind of sign that is. 
> 
> In this chapter, Pearl get injured (cracked) and her perceptions and thought processes get disoriented and weird. Consider this a warning if you're sensitive to that type of thing.

Some years later, Pearl found herself in the desert again.

The spot the Rutile found her wasn’t even close to her almost-encounter with Rose; they were hundreds of miles north and east. There was no ocotillo forest here, and the time of year was wrong to coax any flowers from the struggling brush. Pearl ducked and dodged as the monster chittered and postured, jabbing with oversized claws. The red sand and sunbaked rocks were the same, but they were the same all over this place. The temperature was cooler, and the time of day-

She swung, missed. It spit at her and raised a long, curving tail. The appendage bristled with stiff quills that clacked together like castanets, adding a sinister beat to the rhythm of shifting sand and _swish_ ing blades.

She’d been so _good_ at not thinking about her! Seeing her, seeing the reassurance that she was still alive and still Rose Quartz, had put her out of Pearl’s mind for nearly this long. And now, coming back, it was ridiculous! This place had nothing to do with her! If anyone, she should be thinking about Amethyst, what with Beta just over the next ridge.

The monster’s tail whipped forward, and Pearl stopped thinking and dropped. The wave of black and red projectiles spun harmlessly overhead, finding their mark in unlucky cacti or stabbing uselessly in the ground.

Except for one.

Faster or lower or just on a luckier trajectory than the rest, it lodged in her forehead right where her projected form met her gem. Even before she knew she was hit she felt it; the sickening, grinding, scrape lit up every photon of her form. A jolt ran through her and the world fuzzed out.

By the time Pearl regained her footing, the Rutile had fled and half her perception was lost in static and white noise. No matter how she tried to think, her thoughts refused to run in any kind of order, and she flowed from annoyance at having to track down the monster again to panic over her number of fingers. _Only ten? But, I never had more than ten. Have I ever had less?_ She tried to remember and glitched hard, falling to her knees. The impact wavered through her form and the landscape; everything bounced and shook and rotated around her forehead. The effect was dizzying; it was as though she was at the center of a rubber world.

She shut her eyes and buried her face in the sand - the bite of each grain against her shifting skin was somehow less overwhelming than the visual world. The sky was too blue, the sun was too white, the air was too close, and everything was too much, too heightened and dulled and blown out all at once. With a start, Pearl realized she’d forgotten to close her mouth and rocketed backwards, gagging up rocks and grit. _I’m cracked_ , some part of her grasped. _I’m scratched, I’m gouged, I’m grooved…_

_I’m cracked. Oh stars, I’m cracked! What am I supposed to do now?_

She sat upright, panic starting to cut through the confusion. Her legs may be too short and her hair too soft and the ground too stiff but here was something concrete to focus on: she was cracked. Her fingers probed her gem and the quill still stuck there; aside from a hairline scrape along the seam, all the damage was on the underside. She had no way to tell how bad the damage was. Her vision swam. She couldn’t stay away from Rose forever. She couldn’t come back like this.

Unbidden, Pearl’s mental picture spilled from her gem onto the shaking ground. Frigid blue light outlined Pearl standing tall and walking into the temple where gem-shaped blobs ran to welcome her back. The tallest of them was distorted yet graceful, with broad shoulders and remarkable hair. She moved forward and spread her arms for a hug and the hologram of Pearl leapt into Bismuth’s ( _or was it Snowflake?_ ) arms.

No. No, that couldn’t be right. The projection splintered. Shards of light made tiny sunbursts and Pearl’s head almost burst with them. It hurt to think.

If she came back now, the idea was clearer right now than anything else, all she would do was prove herself wrong. Another projection began to form but wavered and fell apart immediately. Pearl was fine with that. She didn’t particularly want to watch herself limp back to the temple and see the pity on insubstantial faces. She was not some poor, sweet Pearl for Rose to cry on. Not anymore, and maybe she had never really been.

Her form continued to flicker and distort, but Pearl forced herself upright. There was an idea sparking somewhere, and after a minute of desperate, searching thought, Pearl forced it from her scrambled mind. She couldn’t stay like this. Rose’s fountain offered healing in secrecy. Beta, with a warp pad, was just over the next bluff. She took a step in what she hoped was the right direction and tripped over the hem of her jeans. They were at half-mast around her thighs and she pulled them up, furious and terrified that her glitching disrupted her solidity to that extant. Losing your clothes… how embarrassing! Pearl shot a longing glance in the direction of her bike, cringed with dizziness at the way moving her head made the world spin, and began to walk slowly and deliberately towards the Kindergarten.

The warp pad flashed and Pearl collapsed, half on and half off the cool crystal surface. She wished she could have enjoyed the trip more. The once-ordinary feeling of weightlessness was like a balm after her rambling trudge across the desert, riddled with switchbacks and u-turns. There was no way to tell how long she spent in transit; her fluid perceptions combined with the elastic nature of warp space made such a distinction meaningless. If only it were longer! The brief trip had quieted her mind and soothed her aches and she almost activated the pad again just to get back into warp space and spin and somersault in vacuum. Pearl could see Amethyst laughing at her for being so excited about something so mundane, but she didn’t care what Amethyst thought. That was the whole point.

At the thought of Amethyst, Pearl scrambled clumsily to her feet, just a little steadier than she’d been before the stabilizing trip. She’d lost her pants completely somewhere in the desert - and if she didn’t want her reunion cracked, she certainly didn’t want it with bare legs. The sky was grey and soft above, in sharp contrast to the harsh paving stone under her feet. Her boots and fingers were spongy and every sharp corner she touched seemed to sink in. If everything was too bright at Beta, everything was too dark here. Every form and color blotched into each other and when she looked at her skin, she saw a watercolor blend of pink-yellow-white-blue-green and mud.

Pearl moved into the garden as gently as she could. The quill had fallen out at some point, which could only be good, but the hole it left made her feel dangerously exposed. She leaned on the star-shaped portal and peered inside. It was empty.

Pearl panged. Was it relief, disappointment, or simply pain?

The garden was overgrown, the fountain hidden behind layers of crumbling verdure. She scuffed unsteadily through dead leaves and insect corpses, indignance rising in her chest. Had no one pruned the bushes since she left? Could Rose not be bothered to take care of her own garden without her? Shapes coiled in the periphery of Pearl’s vision; her memory filled in brambles bigger around than her waist studded with wicked, knife-like thorns and she was suddenly very aware of the latticed dome above her head, shifting and throwing dapples of shadow and light. Luckily, the stems snaking onto the path recognized her despite the crack and made no hostile move, other than attempting to play with her footing a bit. An innocent tug on her ankle nearly sent her sprawling. She was saved only by latching on to a nearby trunk, barking ( _heh_ ) her arms and chest in the process of kicking off the offending vine. It retreated obediently, but Pearl pulled herself along faster, using the bounty of greeny handholds and driven by the fear of not being able to fight back if the plants changed their mind about her being friend, not foe.

The air was stagnant and clinging. Close quarters were less disorienting than the wide-open desert and the distance was a fraction of what she crossed there, but by the time Pearl stumbled into the fountain’s clearing, she was sure she’d been doomed to wander green corridors for the rest of her existence.

Pearl didn’t spare the statues a glance, but half dashed, half threw herself across the short distance. Her knees slammed the pavement. Her hips bumped bruisingly into the lip of the basin and she thrust her head down with enough force to nearly tip her over and tumble all the way in.

The static cleared, replaced by sparkles in the edge of her eyes. She could feel fresh nacre pooling and washing away the scrape as new strength shoot through her steadying limbs. Then the fog was gone and every thought in her mind was laid out suddenly before her, as shining and precise as technician’s tools. On a whim, she pushed out the air trapped in her mouth and listened to the crisp rush of bubbles. She laughed underwater, and the harsh barking sound was so different than the seemly titter of a court Pearl that she had to laugh again.

She pulled her head out and shook it, scattering droplets of Rose’s essence irreverently across the pavement. She spit out the water trapped in her mouth and a second spatter joined the first: random, impermanent bursts of Pearl. More splotches appeared as the clouds gave way and Pearl spread her arms to let them clean the dust from her rumpled form. The vines’ rustling increased as they unfolded upwards, revealing tiny leaves jockeying for position to take advantage of the sudden downpour. _It’s no wonder they react that way_ , Pearl considered idly. _Rose loves these warm showers best_.

Pearl flinched inwardly, bracing herself for the rush of guilt and longing and confusion and anger that always accompanied thoughts of Rose. None came. She was empty, and it may have just been the leftover euphoria of healing, but that emptiness felt _good_. It filled her to the brim, threatening to spill over and splash nothingness across the ground. It wasn’t nothing, she realized, it was Pearl. She was so full of herself that there was no room for Rose anymore. There was only room for Pearl.

She danced her way out of the garden, through the raindrops. Her deliberate high steps and twirls were interspersed with bizarre human moves and random flailing and kicks. It was a dance for Pearl, and only Pearl. Even when she was alone, she always made sure to move beautifully so that her capability and grace were on full display. Dance was entertainment, after all, and never for the dancer’s sake. But this time, as she spun spasmodically and bent backwards to grasp the backs of her ankles, she didn’t bother to wonder what Garnet, or Amethyst, or even Rose would think if they caught her here. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care!

As she mounted the warp pad, standing tall this time, Pearl thought about going home. Not immediately, of course. Her pants and bike were still somewhere out by Beta. When she had them, she would show the Crystal Gems just what kind of a Pearl she was. She would show Rose. She gave into temptation this time and tumbled in the warp, tucking her legs and rotating lazily in the null gravity. She lost control and one foot went outside the stream, pushing back the curtain and exposing the velvet blackness of warp space for just a second before she pulled it back. When she arrived again in the blasted red-rock landscape of Beta, plans crystallized in her mind as precisely as the shards of ice already melting on her vacuum-touched foot. The parched ground greedily absorbed the moisture as the air sucked away what was left the rain beaded on her form. Pearl stepped off the pad with purpose. She could just warp back, but that would be too ordinary. She had to go return with purpose, with pride. The details were undetermined, but it didn’t matter. There was plenty of time to figure it out. She was taking the scenic route back to Beach City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter! Is the last chapter! It will be very long! So who knows when I will publish it! I hope it will be soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! Here we are! I started this in December 2019 last year and now it is November 2020 and it is done! This chapter could have probably been split up but to be honest, I didn't want to.

It took a long time for Pearl to return. Earth cycled through its seasons more than once as she took the long route north and east, dodging humans and chasing corruptions along the way.

Some delays were accidental. Many were deliberate, as Pearl took every opportunity to dawdle and backtrack, root out monsters and visit old haunts, indulge in memory and fantasy and fight the urge to keep putting off the reunion that was so long in coming. It was ridiculous; it was inevitable. Pearl had never meant to stay away forever. She’d always known she’d come back, but now that she was committed to it the idea was more frightening than ever. _I don’t have to do this_ , she told herself as she trudged through wet, heavy snow. Her pants were soaked and frozen up to the crotch, the heavy fabric protesting every time she took a step. The sun was finally out after weeks of storm clouds, but the pale yellow disk provided no warmth at all. _I didn’t have to come this far north in the winter. I didn’t have to decide to leave the road and walk, either. But I did. I’ve made my choices; I won’t break them now_. Even if they were stubborn and painful. Even if the other side of her appointment had no way to know she was even on her way.

Maybe a delay wouldn’t hurt? There was nothing to stop her from turning around and bumming around the continent for another twenty years, getting ready, gathering experience. But no; when Pearl left in the first place she’d been tempted, too tempted, to turn around and run back to Rose. She didn’t. She kept going, and now here she was with pants and a motorcycle and wire in her hair. Anything she could do back then, she could do now, and she would do it greater and better and-

Pearl stumped her toe on an invisible rock and pitched forward, plunging her upper body into a drift.

Well, maybe she could wait until this snow melted.

Pearl simply squirmed forwards and burrowed the rest of the way into the drift. She covered herself completely and packed out a little hollow, content to doze until spring. Instead she found herself restless and unable to resist the urge to slide into anamnesis and replay endless memories. The hollow was dark and tight, cold and damp, replete with specks of decaying plant life and crunching ice crystals, but there was just enough room to project her pastel-blue history. Thousands of years were hers to reflect on, but for some reason, Pearl found herself drawn to scenes of court. Perhaps the tedium would lull her into dreamless sleep. She felt bored already, watching her ghostly mirror image standing unmoving while Sapphires and Jades bustled around her. Pearl flipped through memories of thousands of dreary days. There was her, announcing Pink’s presence at a ball. There was her, pressing buttons on a screen. There was her, standing still and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and-

Pearl flipped back. _Ah_. Pink had just gotten the news about her planet and was in a tizzy of excitement. Yellow had visited to help her prepare and of course she brought her Pearl. The two of them were standing outside Pink’s chambers. (“Wait out here.” Yellow Diamond ordered, with a dismissive flick of her finger. “We don’t need any distractions.”) Nothing about the circumstance could be called private, but the empty corridor provided rare cover for a quiet conversation.

“I’ve never been to a colony before,” Pearl said.

“They’re horrid,” Pearl said.

“Really?”

“Oh stars, yes.” Pearl altered her posture not one whit, but adopted an arch, jaded, tone to indicate her great experience: “But you’ll get used to it.”

“How are they horrid?”

“Organics everywhere. Temperature changing every day. Too damp as well, at least until the Lapis Lazulis finish their work. Do you know, I once accompanied My Diamond to a completely new world? It had no work done on it at all! The third day we were there, liquid fell from the sky!”

Pearl gasped. “No!”

“Shh!” Pearl glanced around wildly, but there was no one around to witness the impropriety.

“What else happens? How do you stand it?” Pearl wanted to know.

“Well…” and Pearl was off, regaling Pearl with tales of every horrifying circumstance she’d experienced on an undeveloped world: High winds that nearly tore the poufs from her shoulders, rooted organic creatures that spat sticky, clinging stuff at her when she tried to walk past, and her brand new console ruined by a growing red stain. “The air was eating the metal, if you can believe that! I think the Bismuth called it _rust_. There was a huge hole in the bottom where I couldn’t see and when she turned it over, the whole thing was full of creatures nibbling on the chips. It couldn’t be repaired at all! They had to check every bit of tech in the base and most of them had at least some damage. My Diamond was furious.”

“I hope none of that happens to me.”

“Oh, it shouldn’t. This was a long time ago; the new consoles don’t get _rust_.”

Before she could continue, the door slid open and Yellow Diamond emerged. The Diamond didn’t bother looking down, confident that her Pearl would follow. And so she did - slipping expertly into place at her heels, poufs bouncing as she fell into a brisk trot to match the larger gem’s stride.

“Pearl!” Pink shouted from inside. “Come and help me pack!”

“Yes, My Diamond,” Pearl replied and began to fuzz out as the hologram lost its focus. It was hard to believe she’d ever been that naïve, but there she’d been, quaking at descriptions of _rain_ and _pollen_ and wondering if she could ever endure things as awful as Yellow’s Pearl had. She admired her so much for her experience and self-assuredness; even the upswept hairdo seemed to radiate prim confidence.

Pearl’s projection flickered back to life as she began skimming through her early days on Earth. It was going to be a long winter.

When the snow melted enough to travel, she backtracked to the interstate. The quiet winter slipping in and out of consciousness while watching replays of her own life left Pearl wanting nothing more than movement. The air was crisp and cold, roaring in Pearl’s ears as she zipped past the melting mounds of black slush at a sedate 20 km/h over the speed limit. The highway was almost deserted, and she was free to let her mind play as she overtook the occasional semi or sedan. She thought about her form (the last few had tended towards high collars and gold accents), newly decorated with a clear plastic ring she found discarded when digging out her shelter of snow. It had been caked with dirt, but she cleaned it painstakingly until it glowed with a transparent lucite charm. Now it hung on her left wrist, slightly awkward but staying until it got lost or she got tired of it. Pearl could do things like that now; change herself on a whim without worrying about what others thought.

Would the others like how she’d changed? It didn’t matter, of course, but it would be nice if they did. Would they have changed? Amethyst would have, of course, perhaps even more than her. Would Garnet have? A furrow creased her brow. Would Rose?

The myth that Rose Quartz had never been poofed was just that: a myth. It was all part of her mystique, something for Crystal Gems to brag about and Homeworlders to tell each other couldn’t possibly be true. Any Homeworld soldier who claimed to have poofed the rebel leader Rose Quartz had to be lying out of bravado - because none of them had ever claimed her gem or even gotten a close enough look at the stone to realize that it wasn’t what it should have been. Only one, Pearl was certain, had ever gotten close enough to doubt. She was a massive Amethyst armed with deadly luck, ferocious reflexes, and a curved polearm perfect for hooking onto and tearing away a shield. She and Rose had fought each other to the edge of the ambush spot, jabbing and swiping but never quite managing to land a blow. Rose leaned in to slash, extended her arm and raised her shield – and the Amethyst took the opening without hesitation. She lunged forwards, backwards, sent the shield spinning then charged in again, transfixed Rose at the hip and barely had time to realize there was something odd about the shape before a whirling white dervish of blades and lace slammed into her side and the world went black.

Before the dust cleared, before anyone could realize what happened, Pearl was gone. She dropped her blades and ran from the battlefield, cradling Rose close to her chest. No one noticed her disappear in the chaos.

She waited a long week for Rose to return, composing desperate excuses for the appointments Pink Diamond was missing and fretting about how the fight had gone after she fled. No one had expected a battle – there wasn’t supposed to be one – just a quick raid on supplies that were much heavier guarded than anyone anticipated. Someone ambitious bit of middle management must have noticed the lack of orders from on high and begun assigning escorts themselves. _Finally, initiative_! Pearl would have been proud if it hadn’t led to this. Rose would be proud regardless.

By the time they returned to the rebel camp, Rose was able to deliver an impeccably crafted narrative involving fight, flight, hiding, and secret treachery, which of course they’d have to leave again immediately to investigate. This was greeted by nods, agreement, and more than a few skeptical snickers, breaking into laughter when Bismuth shouted _Have fun, lovers!_ as they left. Pearl blushed from the base of her neck all the way up to her hairline, prompting another round of hoots and whistles, but it didn’t matter. If all the others suspected was that they were running off to tryst, that was infinitely preferable to the truth: sneaking back to the moon base to grovel and apologize for losing Pink’s schedule, while her Diamond slouched and pouted and pretended she didn’t care.

There was no war this time. There were no Diamonds to make excuses for and the only Amethyst on the planet couldn’t have laid a scratch on Rose if she tried. The odds that Rose had been dissipated since she left were so astronomically small, but a baroque lump of fear solidified in Pearl’s throat at the image of her gem on the ground, the very not-Quartz cut announcing to anyone who saw it: _I’m a liar!_ And by extension, _so is Pearl!_

Pink’s last words reverberated in her skull and Pearl gunned it. The jagged roar of her bike, even after the muffler modifications, was only almost enough to drown out the order. _No one can know._

 _Know… no, no, no!_ Pearl pushed down the panic crawling up her throat and forced herself calm. If they knew, they already knew, and there was nothing Pearl could have done. She hadn’t disobeyed. The realization filled her with relief, and almost immediately after, disappointment. Shouldn’t she be glad at the prospect of a broken order? Shouldn’t she hate that Rose still had that hold on her, after all this time? If the truth had come out, would the others hate her? Would Rose? Was she coming home just to be cast out again?

With every rotten thought, her grip on the throttle tightened until she zoomed past a speed trap at 240 kph. A police car peeled out, flashing lights and sirens, but it was already miles behind when Pearl squealed to a stop, stowed the bike in her gem, and sprinted away at a right angle from the road. Who said Rose had been found out? When she got back, everything would be the same as it always was. She threw back her head and barked out a laugh. Only she would have changed. Her boots crushed shoots of early corn as she sprinted with abandon through the fields. Muck crusted on the hem of her jeans and the lucite ring bounced on her wrist. She pushed it up past her elbow and didn’t wince at the pinch when she forced it over the joint. Her hair flew back in tangles and clumps and the cold air stung her face and her eyes and she laughed. When she reached the other side of the field, away from any human pursuit, she didn’t bother to take out her bike. She just kept running along the road.

Pearl reached Beach City in the fall. It looked about the same as she remembered: little farms, factories and warehouses, scruffy suburbs with overgrown grass and patched roofs. The chemical plant had been shut down and now graffiti covered its concrete walls. Pearl paused to add her own mark among the rude slogans and governmental slurs: a small white star, chalked under a broken window. She felt tempted to loiter and kick chunks of concrete around the parking lot, but the prospect of meeting up with security, squatters, or even other vandals didn’t appeal to her now. _Stop dawdling, Pearl_ , she scolded. _Go on, go_!

She hit the boardwalk at midmorning. The sky was blue between grey clouds and despite a slight chill in the air, the humans were out in force. They wandered and mingled, watching the sky and paying mind to nothing but themselves, though a few shot dirty glances at the rough-looking stranger on the big blue bike. Pearl recognized some of them, but there were so many new faces that it boggled her. Had Beach City grown so much since she’d left? Or had she never taken the time to notice before? She sent her best don’t-mess-with-me glare right back and left her motorcycle leaning on a lamppost at the edge of the beach. No one challenged her as she walked down to the water.

The ocean hadn’t changed. Why would it have? Oceans were eternal, at least until the Lapises swooped in. Pearl stooped and scooped up a hard, spiky shell. Hefting it, testing the weight, she flung it with all her might. In the distance, a tiny splash. The water was choppy and restless, as if yearning for just one last summer storm. Tiny waves broke on the beach and left a scum of salt behind.

Pearl’s boots made satisfying imprints in the sand: crisp, perfect treadmarks that crumbled and spilled grains of sand before being smoothed away by the gentle ebb and flow of saltwater. She dug in her toe and scraped a shallow trench from the waterline to the hollow spot where she pried out the shell. The water followed obediently until the pit collapsed and became just another low spot with nothing to show what had been taken. A sudden seventh wave pushed further than its brethren and almost wet Pearl’s ankles; she hopped back in alarm, rising into a quick twirl for the sake of it. She was still light on her feet when she needed to be.

Enough dawdling.

Like everything else, Pearl had meticulously planned her return. In fact, she had planned several. In one, she would climb the temple and trumpet her return, demanding acknowledgment from Obsidian’s forehead. In another, she would sneak inside when no one else was about and simply fall back into a routine. There would be no proclamation, no grand gesture - she would simply be there, and the others would be forced to make the first move. That appealed to Pearl. They would ask question after question and Pearl would only deign to answer the ones that pleased her. Maybe she wouldn’t answer any at all! But no- she would show off her human machine and human music. Garnet and Amethyst would admire how worldly she’d become, and no matter how Rose would gaze with those starry eyes, Pearl would remain aloof.

(She wouldn’t lie to herself; Pearl knew she’d fall back into Rose’s arms again. It was just how she was made. But for one shining imagined moment, Pearl belonged to no one.)

There was a house cradled in the temple’s hands and Pearl’s fantasy soured. Greg was still there. Not only was he still around, he had even moved in. _It doesn’t matter_ , Pearl reminded herself. Rose could have dozens of humans living in the temple and Pearl couldn’t care less. In fact, she would show Greg her guitar and her bike and her music and her jeans and he wouldn’t be half as smug anymore. She had surpassed him. He could have Rose; in fact, they would have to settle for each other.

The door was unlocked. Pearl didn’t bother knocking, but entered confidently, taking it all in. It had been impossible to tell how far the house extended from the outside, but the back wall was temple stone and an ancient door with a warp pad embedded familiarly in the floor before it. Would she have to walk through every time she needed to warp? The room was neat, if not especially clean, and her nose wrinkled at a bowl of cereal and milk which appeared to have spilt half of its contents across a coffee table. To her right, she saw a kitchen. To her left, a loft. Both were cluttered with debris- dishes, clothing, and all the other useless things humans collected without even trying. _Although_ , she thought, absentmindedly bring her fingers to her wrist, _Pearls aren’t much better, are we_? With a nervous chuckle at the mixture of pride and shame the thought called up, she turned and saw Rose.

She loomed above the doorway, nearly life sized, which meant the portrait had to be huge. Rose was depicted from the waist up, with her eyes closed and hands crossed below her gem. Blurred brushstrokes became a cloud of gauzy pink hair, spilling out of the frame. She had a calm, serene expression Pearl had rarely witnessed before, so delicately rendered it was hard to believe it was human work, though it must have been: none of the gems could paint. She was beautiful.

Pearl was so engrossed she didn’t notice her hands moving of their own accord, up to her chest and about to cross in a salute. She shoved her left hand down, fisting it in her jean pocket and laid the other flat again her chest, where a heart would be. A human salute. She left it there for a full minute until her mind stopped buzzing and her eyes cleared. It was reflex. The portrait had taken her by surprise. It had been so long, and she missed her.

She heard the _chunk_ of a latch opening, behind her, and turned around.

Amethyst and a human emerged from behind the loft. They weren’t any that Pearl recognized, and they certainly weren’t Greg. This human was small and smiling, with sopping wet hair and water running down their too-large shirt. Amethyst had her hands on their shoulders and was scolding them in a gentle voice.

“What do I always tell you?” She shook their shoulders and the human laughed. “You gotta drink your milk, not wash your hair with it. That’s what shampoo is for.”

The human tried and failed to push the gem’s hands away, giggling. “But Amethyst, you drink shampoo!”

“I don’t know what to say, Steven. Life’s unfair sometimes.” Amethyst gave them a gentle shove towards the table. “Finish your breakfast, huh? I gotta find a towel and clean this up before it dries.” She turned towards the kitchen area, presumably for a towel, lifted her head, and saw Pearl.

Amethyst was different. Her hair was straighter and longer, with wavy tips that barely brushed the floor when she moved. There were no frills in evidence, no fringe, just loose, utilitarian layers. The only decorations Pearl saw were the black stars ripped over each knee. Her expression was indescribable.

The human ( _Steven?_ ) looked up from the bowl. “Amethyst, who’s that?”

“Where have you been?” Amethyst shouted. “It’s been decades!”

Pearl didn’t reply for a second, taken aback. This was her welcome? “That’s none of your business,” she finally replied and began walking to the temple door. So much for sneaking in.

“Whaddaya mean, it’s none of my business? We thought you were _dead_. You left for no reason and we didn’t know anything and now you think you can show up out of nowhere looking like trash and it’s _fine_? You don’t even know what happened to Rose!”

Pearl whipped around and made furious eye contact. She didn’t leave for no reason. Her form was not trash. There were a dozen retorts on the tip of her tongue and she hated that what she said instead of any of them was “What happened to Rose?”

The human ran up to Amethyst, their bare feet making a soft tapping sound on the wood floor. “Amethyst,” they repeated, “who’s that?”

Amethyst put an arm around the human but addressed Pearl instead. “Maybe that’s none of _your_ business.”

Pearl turned again, back towards the temple, ignoring the piping chorus of _Amethyst, who is she? Do you know her? What’s her name? Is she a gem too?_ “Garnet will tell me.”

As if on cue, the warp pad flashed. If Garnet was surprised to see Pearl, it didn’t show.

“What happened to Rose?” Pearl demanded.

“Pearl. It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too. What happened to Rose?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?” Pearl’s mouth twisted. “When will she be back?”

“Don’t know.” Garnet stepped off the warp pad and walked right past Pearl, not turning her head, though it was impossible to tell what exactly was going on behind those mirrored shades. “Hello Steven.” The small human raised their arms and the fusion obliged, lifting them up and setting them atop her hair. It was longer, like Amethyst’s; the cube of curls now reached her shoulders, which in turn were covered with stiff cylindrical pads. The overall effect made Pearl think of the way some Earth creatures puffed themselves up to look bigger, stronger, or less like a meal. It was something she might have teased about in other circumstances, but now it was a footnote at the bottom of an increasingly worrying paragraph. There was an abstract star wrapped around her chest and back, and Pearl was even more aware of the fact that she didn’t have one.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Can’t you see it?”

Steven reached down and tapped his stubby fingers on Garnet’s visor. “Garnet, who’s that?”

“Her name is Pearl,” Garnet answered. “You need a clean shirt.”

“No, it was just a little milk!”

“It was a lot of milk,” said Amethyst.

Garnet held Steven in front of her face and said seriously, “Milk doesn’t grow on trees.”

Pearl couldn’t stand it. She was supposed to be the one ignoring them. She was cracked and cured and came all the way back here and now there was a house attached to the temple and Garnet and Amethyst were acting like this tiny human was more important than her. Rose wasn’t even here. Something had happened and they wouldn’t tell her what. She needed to find her. No, she had to wait for Rose to come to her. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She stomped over to the warp pad. “If you don’t know when Rose is coming back, then tell me where she went. I’ll find her myself!”

There was no answer; Amethyst was busy rummaging in a set of drawers, yanking out wrinkled pink shirts and underwear. The growing pile of cloth made Pearl’s fingers itch. She had a folding board somewhere. Maybe if she helped, they’d give her answers. Maybe she could do something useful for a change.

Amethyst held up a pink shirt that was no different from any of the others crumpled on the floor or the one Garnet was trying to pull over Steven’s head.

“Hold still,” she ordered.

“No!” Steven laughed and pulled away. They ducked between Garnet’s legs and ran blindly in Pearl’s direction with the soiled shirt rucked up over their face, exposing a chubby abdomen and nestled between the folds of skin, a shining pink gem.

Pearl lunged.

Garnet caught her, snaking a firm arm tight across her waist. Fury at being restrained fought with euphoria at (finally!) the touch of another gem and Pearl screeched something inarticulate and hysterical that made the other gems wince and the human clutch Amethyst’s arm and stare at Pearl with big black eyes. Pearl glared until they looked away, shifted her gaze to the portrait. Rose’s eyes were closed.

“I told you she was gone,” said Garnet. Her voice was stilted and slow, as though trying to find the answer to a question she didn’t quite understand. Just what that question was was left unspoken, or perhaps unspeakable.

Pearl sagged against the fusion’s arms. Garnet let her go and stepped away to stand next to the other two. Protectively, Pearl thought, and looked at all three of them together. They acted with total familiarity, even the human, who was, she now realized, a child. Her gaze flicked to the loft, where she noticed the small bed and television, the open drawers and shirts strewn on the floor, the dirty dishes in the sink. Something had happened here. She didn’t know what, but she knew, like an ache deep in her nacre (like she knew her purpose was gone) that she wasn’t part of it. She felt suddenly, deeply, ridiculous in her random, gaudy palette and boots and jeans and unruly hair twisted with wire because ribbons had seemed too ordinary. She was acutely, embarrassingly, aware of the sand she’d tracked in from the beach and the clear plastic dangling from one arm. What could they possible think of her, showing up like this? She was the oldest gem here, but she felt brand new, making a stupid mistake and being excused only because she was too inexperienced to know better.

She wanted to walk right out the exterior door and run down the beach and drive away. She wanted to walk right into the temple door and lose herself in its ever-shifting geometry. She wanted to step onto the warp pad and take herself anywhere that wasn’t here. She wanted to sit right down on the floor and cry with frustration, and that was absolutely the worst option because it was the only one she knew with complete certainty that she didn’t want and tears were already pricking at her eyes. _Look at me. What a mess. All this time and I’m still no better than I’ve ever been._

“Pearl?” asked Garnet and reached out a hand. Pearl shied away and immediately kicked herself for doing so. How terrible she must look, for Garnet to want to comfort her like this? How ungrateful she must be, to even think about turning it down.

Pearl let herself drop to the floor, legs crossed. “Tell me what happened.” Pearl said, making eye contact with Garnet, and Amethyst, and yes, even that little whatever-they-are, still shirtless, still looking at her with curiosity and fear and maybe even concern. “Tell me that and I’ll tell you everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't entirely like this ending, but it's really the only way this sordid situation could have ended up. Bitter sweet I suppose, for a certain measure of 'bitter' and a certain definition of 'sweet'


End file.
